getting into a project feels RIGHT

worked on all these design skills for webpages, only to find that between “webmasters” coming out of the woodwork and gravitations to proprietary software like Adobe CS5 … wasn’t much to be made with the field.

mainly in that i didn’t skip the “novice” part of learning, and have in my head the knowledge to build a webpage from scrap minus all the bells and whistles of a fancy editor. started with CSS which focuses on function of color and field manipulation. AND i learned how to make use of the basic photoshop program as IF it were the more expensive Adobe CS5. (looked over specs of CS6 and didn’t see one function that can’t already be done with the stripped-down PSE7–at least in how i make it hum.)

but haven’t been excited about a project in awhile now … there just seemed too many roadblocks. too much stupid for me to tolerate in the commercial use of web-templates that turned the internet into what equates to track-homes. could be a visual delight if so many didn’t go and take that easy route in the conformist tricks of bags.

but guess what? should have explored earlier, and kicking myself i didn’t sooner. but had put the ebook-conversion stuff on the backburner — and guess what? ebooks use HTML for their base code. all the code i learned to build, all the skill it took to render pages, can be used in designing ebooks.

which is sort of on the way-cool side. an ebook is coded as a “portable website.” that’s how they do it, use the file-system method from a website, build and zip it. people may NOT want or care about ‘original’ website builds when they can buy a template … but for books? might find a spot where i can be of use.

know what the really cool thing is? several years back i blogged about finding the right format to store ANY written work for the best long-term results. (if you stored treasured pieces in old Word on floppies you know what i mean!) Put your writing into Office or even PDF, and in 20 years when they dismantle or change the read–which they WILL (continuing profits for sales of software depend on NOT making it compatible) ….and writers are left high and dry with a bunch of code in files and no way to effectively translate that to a new medium. after watching all the out-put formulas, BROWSERS were the unusual winner in consistency for backwards compatibility. i thought, why not?

so HTML was what i decided upon … is highly customizable in format, and all text is in straight-text with NO encoding. which means, you can pull that text out in one block and convert to another form at any time. the only similar method of electronic storage for written works, is the text editor or .txt files. but for presentation, has no formatting. so my conclusion for the blog was that HTML was without a doubt the best and surest way for writers to save their work without getting shafted down the road.

kind of a good feeling to see THAT is what they went with in the builds for the Ebook files. you never know if you were the pebble, which i doubt but dreams are fun🙂 and nice to be excited about a project again….. partly since i’ve been in mourning for my grandmother, and haven’t allowed-it until now.

is that a cool backcover, or what? picture taken this last winter at sugarhouse park.